Cristian de Sales Dambros

Cristian de Sales Dambros holds a degree in Biological Sciences from the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM, 2008), Master’s in Entomology from the National Institute for Amazon Research (INPA, 2010) and PhD in Biology from the University of Vermont, USA (2011-2015), under the guidance of Dr. Nicholas J. Gotelli. He worked as a fellow at the Program for Biodiversity Research (PPBio) in the Amazon under the supervision of Dr. William Magnusson (2010), did postdoctoral research at the Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT) and the Federal University of Goiás (UFG,2015-2016). He worked as a fellow at the National Institute of Science and Technology - Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity Conservation (INCT - EECBio / CNPq, 2017) where he assisted in the modernization of the system for processing and analysis of ecological data (Cluster INCT - UFG). He is currently an Adjunct Professor at UFSM and advises in the Master's and doctoral programs in the Postgraduate Program in Animal Biodiversity. His research is focused on the area of community ecology investigating the evolutionary and ecological processes responsible for biodiversity (e.g. high species richness in the Amazon, increase in species diversity towards the tropics, etc.). The projects he develops with field activities are conducted primarily with termites in the Amazon, the most important animal group for decomposition and nutrient cycling in tropical forests. He also works on projects involving multiple taxa simultaneously, in order to investigate the general processes affecting the distribution of species (e.g. the importance of rivers in the Amazon).